iEthico

iEthico is a Coventry-based healthtech company building an AI-powered platform to help pharmacists source hard-to-find medicines and predict drug shortages before they occur. Founded in 2020 by Debra Ainge and Renee Kalia — both veterans of the pharmaceutical supply chain industry — the company emerged from a shared conviction that technology could solve a problem that manual processes had failed to address for over fifteen years.

Drug shortages are a persistent and serious public health challenge: at any given time, dozens of essential medicines are unavailable or difficult to source through normal supply channels, forcing pharmacists to spend hours making phone calls and sending emails to wholesalers in an attempt to locate products that may exist but are practically inaccessible. iEthico's platform replaces this manual, fragmented process with a digital marketplace that connects UK pharmacists directly with a network of licensed wholesalers and distributors, enabling competitive sourcing of hard-to-find medicines through a single, MHRA-approved interface with built-in regulatory compliance checks.

The platform's AI layer adds predictive capability: by aggregating and analysing pharmaceutical supply chain data, iEthico can identify medicines showing early signs of supply risk and alert pharmacists before a shortage materialises. This shifts the industry's approach from reactive crisis management to proactive inventory optimisation — reducing the time pharmacists spend on shortage management, improving patient access to medicines, and helping the NHS reduce the cost premium associated with emergency sourcing.

iEthico has received Innovate UK grant funding, investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, and reached the finals of the KPMG UK Tech Innovator Awards 2023 and The Spectator Economic Innovator of the Year award. The company raised £1.2 million to continue developing its AI platform and expanding its network of pharmacist and supplier users across the UK.